


Moving

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Series: Welcome [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 11 Speculation, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 23:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13154478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: With the help of Mulder and Scully, William moves into his dorm room.  Fourth in the "Welcome" series.





	Moving

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to my fics "Welcome," "Conversations," and "At the House." 
> 
> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

They come back from the housewares store around the corner with a few last things—a trash can, a package of five hangers, a bottle of laundry detergent.  Will sets the detergent on a shelf, while Mulder puts the trash can near the door and Dana takes the cardboard off the hangers and puts them in the wardrobe (they don’t really need three people to do this, but he lets them help).  It’s only them in the room right now; his roommate, Ben, went somewhere with a guy he knows from high school.

“Do you have everything you need?” Dana asks. 

“I think so, yeah,” Will says.  “Thanks.”  He didn’t imagine moving in like this, even last year, even when he worked on his college essay (they wanted you to write about a significant experience, and he wrote about everything he’d learned on the cross-country team, hoping that maybe if he pretended that he wasn’t having a vastly more significant experience right at that very moment and that everything he’d thought about his life hadn’t blown up, the whole thing would just go away).  But this is how it’s happening.  He’s just spent two days driving from Washington to Boston with Dana and Mulder, and they’ve helped him set up his dorm room, and now here the three of them are, looking at each other, not totally sure what comes next.

“When’s your orientation meeting?” Dana asks.

He looks at the schedule again.  “Three-thirty.”  About half an hour from now.

Mulder nods.  “Are you ready?” he asks.  “Is there anything else the two of us can do?”

“Yeah, I think I’m ready,” Will says.  “I’m pretty much set, I think.”  There’s nothing so special in their questions.  He never really thought about this part, but if he had, he probably would have imagined it like this: the same questions, only not with these two asking them.  It would have been—well, he still doesn’t know what to call them now, not even in his thoughts.  Even when he’s angry, it’s hard not to call them his parents.  And these questions that Dana and Mulder are asking now are the kinds of questions parents always ask, he figures, at least if they care about you.  Which he’s pretty sure now that the two of them do.  Which he always thought that the others did.

“Okay,” Mulder says.  He’s drumming his fingers on Will’s desk; Dana nudges him with her hip.  “Should we stick around for a little longer?”

 “We can go if you want time to yourself,” Dana says.  “But we can stay if you want us to.”  She straightens his towel on its bar so that its edges are lined up, her movements jerky.  They both look like they’re waiting for him to tell them what to do.

There’s a part of Will that wants them to stay longer, that feels like there should be some sort of moment here, some dramatic words exchanged.  But there’s also a part of him that doesn’t want this to be dramatic at all.  He wants them to go, to spend the night in Boston and then head home and call him on the phone a bunch, with the knowledge that they’ll be back—that he’ll see them in October at Family Weekend—never in the slightest doubt.

They’re both still looking at him.  The past is always there, but he feels as close as he can get to that certainty.  “Yeah,” he says.  “You can go.”

A little pause, and then they nod.  “So,” Mulder says.  “This is it.”

“I guess so,” Will says.

Mulder moves to hug him, and he hugs back, for a little longer than he might on a normal day, but not so long that it gets weird.  “We’ll miss you a lot, Will,” he says.  “But you’re going to do great here.  Work hard, okay?  But not too hard.  Do some crazy things too.”

“Okay,” Will says.  “But I’m a little afraid of what you mean by that.”  Mulder’s laugh sounds a little unsteady, like he’s getting choked up, but he’s smiling as he moves away and lets Dana have her turn at a hug.

She’s got tears in her eyes.  “We’re going to miss you so much,” she says.  “Mulder’s right, though.  You’re going to have an amazing time.  Call us, okay?  Call us tomorrow and tell us how you’re doing.  We’ll call you too…but it’s okay if you don’t answer right away, we’ll know you’re busy getting settled, meeting people…”  It’s nice of her to say; he knows from how often they touch on the topic of phone calls and e-mail that they’re anxious about not hearing from him.  “You’re going to do so well,” she says, wiping at her eyes.

“I’ll call,” he says.  “Definitely.  I’m going to miss both of you too.”  It’s strange to think that he really means it.

“We love you,” Dana says.  “So much.” 

“We really do,” Mulder adds. 

They tell him this all the time.  He knows it would make them happy if he said it back or if he called them Mom and Dad.  Emily does those things, and sometimes he wishes it were as easy for him.  They’ve never asked him, though, not once.

Right now, he hugs them again, both at the same time, the three of them entwined.  They’re both crying a little by now.  This one is a long hug.

They all look at each other for another moment when they pull apart.  Dana is the first to speak.  “Okay then.  This is going to get messy if we drag it out.  Let’s say goodbye and then I’ll go cry somewhere else.”

“You’d better not fall apart on me,” Mulder says.  “I was counting on falling apart on you.”  They all smile a little.

“Right,” Will says.  “Bye, then, Dana.  Bye, Mulder.”

“Goodbye, Will,” Dana says.  “Have a wonderful orientation.  We’ll talk to you really soon.”

“Knock ‘em dead out there,” Mulder says.  “Bye for now, then.”  Will sees them the three steps to the door and watches them down the hall before he closes it.  There are still a few minutes before he needs to head down to the orientation meeting, and he sits down experimentally on his new bed.

His phone rings, and he looks at it; it’s Emily.  He picks it up quickly.  “Hi,” he says.

“Hi, Will!” Emily says.  “I just wanted to check in.  How’s move-in going?  Are Mom and Dad still there?”

“They left,” he says.  “Just a couple of minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Emily says.  “Were they really emotional?”  She’s probably trying to figure out if she should call them next to try to cheer them up.  She always does that kind of thing.

“A little,” he says.  “Not too bad.”

“That’s good,” Emily says.  “How about you?  How are you doing?  Do you like it so far?”

“I guess so,” he says.  “There hasn’t been that much to judge yet.  We moved in, and they gave us these bag lunches.  My room’s fine, though, and so far I like my roommate.  We have an orientation meeting pretty soon.”

“That sounds good,” Emily says.  “What other kinds of things are going on?”

He flips through the orientation booklet.  “There’s a barbecue tonight,” he says, “and a welcome ceremony, for all the freshmen.  And then this week there are more meetings…campus tours…some things where you can go around Boston…”

“Are you excited?” Emily asks.

“Yeah,” he says.  “I am.  I think it’s going to be good here.”

“Aww,” Emily says.  “Listen to you, all grown up and living on your own.”

“You’re not that much older than me,” he points out.

“Well, you’re still my little brother,” Emily says.  “I remember when you were a baby.  I remember when you could barely even talk.”  Will can’t really argue with that point.  A lot has changed this year, but he’s still got someone around who heard his first sentences.  “Anyway,” she adds, “I’m glad you’re having a good time.  I miss you, you know.”

“Miss you too,” he says.  It isn’t complicated, saying these things to her.

“But I’ll see you pretty soon,” she says.  “At Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah,” he says.  He thinks about Thanksgiving, wondering what it will be like.  Emily usually starts cooking at an hour when any reasonable person would still be asleep.  He usually gets bribed into helping by a chance to taste the pies.  He doesn’t know what Mulder and Dana usually do.  He thinks it might be fun to find out.  “I should probably go, Emily,” he says.  “I have to get down to this meeting.”

“Of course,” Emily says.  “You have a great time, Will.  I’ll text you, okay?”

“Sure,” he says.  “Bye, Emily.”

“Bye, Will.”

Before he heads down, he glances at the picture on Ben’s desk—it’s him with his parents and presumably his brother.  Will hasn’t put out any pictures, at least not yet.  He should probably think about that.


End file.
